Fertility trends in rural China in the 1980s: Cohort effect versus period effect

While the dramatic decline in fertility in China in the 1970s has been acknowledged worldwide and is very well documented in the demographic literature both at home and abroad (China Population Information Center, 1984; Coale, 1984, among others), China’s fertility and related population trends in the 1980s have evoked much concern and discussion in recent years (Hardee-Cleveland and Banister, 1988; Zeng, 1989; Kaufman et al., 1989; Greenhalgh, 1989, 1990; Tien, 1990a; Aird, 1990; Poston, 1991, among others).